Ginny stared at her reflection in the cracked mirror. She had a half-healed cut running from the top left of her forehead to the right side of her nose, courtesy of Alecto Carrow; and a bruise in the shape of a hand on her right cheek, courtesy of Alecto's brother, Amycus. She sighed and washed her battered face gently, taking care not to reopen the cut or press too hard on the bruise. She was confident that they would fade within a day or two. She was even more confident that more would replace them soon afterward.
She forced herself to attend class, pretending to cast Unforgivables on the younger students, pretending to cringe at their fake contortions and howls of pain. Truly cringing at the punishment received by the casters with less convincing partners. She ate lunch in the Great Hall, focusing intently on her plate. No one glanced toward the professors, and no one said a word. The deafening sound of silverware and chewing was enough to drive her mad.
More classes. McGonagall's face was lined and tired. Flitwick's squeaky voice sounded deflated, and Slughorn's false cheer was belied by the constant terror in his eyes. As she trudged toward the Great Hall for dinner, an arm reached out from a darkened side corridor and swiftly yanked her into the shadows. She immediately went for her wand, tussling with the taller person until his whispering broke through. "Sssh, Ginny, it's me, stop, it's Neville." Her body relaxed as she whispered back furiously, "Why did you do that, I thought you were the Carrows! Bloody hell, Neville."
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out the expression on his battered face. It wavered between abashed and triumphant. "Sorry," he mumbled hurriedly, "but Ginny, I've done it! I've taken it! It's ours now, Dumbledore's Army's, we can hide there!"
She was bewildered. "What on earth are you talking about? What's ours?"
He paused, a mad gleam sparkling in his eye as he pronounced, "The Room of Requirement, of course."
Ginny stared at him. "How did you… They're guarding it, aren't they?"
"Stunned them as they were switching out guards. The Room won't let them back in now." He looked shy for a moment. "I think it likes me. The Room, I mean. It even gave me food! Well, sort of... Never mind, come on and see it for yourself." He grasped her hand and tugged her along the corridors and staircases until the stood outside the Room. The wall slid open and Ginny's face lit up as they stepped inside.
"Oh, Neville!" she exclaimed.
"It's not much," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "But it's a start, right?"
Ginny surveyed the small-ish room. There wasn't much in it—two hammocks, a bookcase and a Gryffindor banner on the wall—but it was the most beautiful thing she'd seen in months. She turned back to Neville, who was watching her anxiously. "This is wonderful! Who else knows?"
"Just you. I was waiting for someone in the DA to walk by, and you were the first one who did. Will you help me tell the others?"
"Of course," she said excitedly. "But wait, you said something about food?"
Neville's face lit up. "Yeah! I've been in here for a little over a day, hiding from the Carrows. I think they were actually going to kill me for that last stunt—but anyway, I was getting really hungry and all of a sudden this portrait showed up on the wall." He pointed to a Gryffindor-red curtain that nearly covered a portrait of an empty tunnel. "So I walked over to it, and this girl showed up in it. She kind of smiled at me, and the portrait opened. There was a passage, and when I followed it, I ended up in the Hog's Head. Did you know the bartender there is Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth?"
Ginny shook her head dumbly.
"Well, he wasn't too happy to see me, but he gave me food and pumpkin juice—they're over in that trunk by the bookcase. I suppose we can get more from him if we need it…" He trailed off, as though he had lost his train of thought.
Ginny considered the almost-empty space for a moment. "I'll go to dinner and act like everything is normal. When I get back to the common room, I'll round up the other members of the DA, and we'll be down tonight. I'm not sure how many are going to want to come with me. Can you get some more food?"
"Sure," Neville said quickly. "Thanks, Ginny. It'll be nice to have some company. Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back."
She nodded, then swiftly turned and left the Room, making sure that the door slid firmly shut behind her and dissolved into the rest of the wall before she made her way to the Hall. After dinner, she quietly gathered together the Gryffindor members of the DA. They snuck one-by-one to the Room of Requirement, each giving the person ahead of them 10 minutes before starting out. Parvati Patil went to Ravenclaw Tower to fetch her sister and the other Ravenclaws, while Katie Bell retrieved the Hufflepuffs.
Ginny was the last to leave the common room. She snuck through the corridors, tiptoeing around suits of armor and avoiding the portraits' suspicious gazes. As they often did, her thoughts drifted to Harry. She wondered what he was doing, wondered if he was injured or frightened. Wondered if he missed her as much as she missed him. She imagined that he was there beside her, under his Invisibility Cloak, silently laughing at her ballet-like attempts to skirt statues in the dark. A smile curved her lips as she pictured his tousled hair, cheeky grin, sparkling eyes. He would have a hand over his mouth to hide his laughter from her, forgetting that he was already concealed by the Cloak. His face would be pink and his eyes bright with humor. He would reach to steady her as she tripped over a rug corner, and she would slip under the Cloak and come nose-to-nose with his smiling face…
She was so focused on her fantasy that she almost didn't hear the swishing of robes approaching from the intersecting corridor. Panicking, she darted back the way she'd come, feeling her way along until her fingers hit a vase resting on a stone plinth. She quickly ducked behind it, pressing her body against the wall. She held her breath, nerves dancing under her skin, and chanced a peek around the vase.
Her heart almost stopped.
Twenty feet away, face illuminated by the faint glow of his wand tip, was Severus Snape. And he was staring directly into her terrified eyes. Heart filling with dread, entire body tense and shaking, Ginny closed her eyes and waited for the axe to fall. The seconds ticked slowly by, and nothing happened. Then she heard robes swishing once more, growing… fainter? She cracked one eye open, and watched Snape stalk away down the hall, away from her. Her heart thudded loudly, once, then resumed its normal pattern. That was close, she thought. He must have been too far away to see her, his wand light too dim. Although she could have sworn that he was looking right at her… She dismissed the thought, simply relieved to have gotten away. What a miracle.
She made it to the Room of Requirement without further complications and was greeted by the sight of a much-enlarged space, full of hammocks and new banners representing Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. There were also a few more bookcases, probably for the Ravenclaws, in case their brains began to deteriorate in the absence of perpetual knowledge. For a moment, she glanced around at the members of the three Houses as they talked excitedly and explored their new home. The aching tension that had plagued her all year abruptly drained from her body. They were safe here. She curled into a red hammock, gently swinging back and forth until her eyelids grew heavy and she drifted to sleep. Though the dawn erased it from her mind, she dreamed of green eyes and lightning, and woke with a smile on her face.